Oh, the Thinks You Can Think

I'm a bit biased about how wonderful Auntie Yang's Great Soybean Picnic and Mahjong All Day Long are. Full disclosure: I'm from Illinois and I've lived in Indiana. And I'm moving to China in a month! (And I have 2 awesome sisters!) So, they're the perfect books for me, but they might just be great for you too. They are such a sweet celebration of family traditions, so culturally specific and yet so universally heartwarming, that I can't help but want to share them with everyone I know! So let's travel from place to place, book by book.

As any parent knows, young children are curious about the world. At the library, we explore a range of topics during Preschool Science and Math. When the weather turns cold, I turn to one of my favorite themes for preschool science: Animals in Winter. Here are some of the activities we did in December!

Did you know MCPL now has Playaways? In Children's Services, we have over 30 titles available for check-out (or for placing a hold if already checked out). Simply insert an AAA battery and some headphones, and you've got yourself a portable audiobook. The player itself is smaller than a deck of cards, and they're packaged in bright orange cases. We've placed them near our books-on-cd. Come check one, or more, out! (3-week check-out.)

Increasingly, our patrons are asking about downloadable ebooks and audiobooks for children. You can search our online catalog for downloadable materials, and when you connect to our partner provider - Indiana Digital Media (also known as Overdrive) -- you can further limit your search to juvenile materials. These items can then be downloaded to a number of different mobile devices.

Many parents and teachers have also turned to TumbleBooks, an online collection of animated picture books and "read-along" chapter books, as another way to access ebooks for children. Available for free through the library's website, TumbleBooks offers a variety of fiction and nonfiction titles especially for young children. (Find a link to TumbleBooks on the right side of the Children's Services home page: mcpl.info/childrens.) Read more »

Did you know there's a place in Antarctica where it's warm enough to swim? It's true! It's heated by an active (though not actively erupting!) volcano. Mouse and his human friend have set out on a long journey to that spot, and we're along for the adventure.

A Trip To The Bottom Of the World with Mouse, written and illustrated by Frank Viva, is the tale of a mouse in a stripey hat, and a bald-headed boy in a shirt with a bat on it, amusing themselves aboard a big boat bound for Antarctica. Mouse is antsy to get where they're going -- Mouse is always antsy -- and the boy is seasick. So they chat about everything they can think of to keep their minds occupied. The story progresses as a series of lists under discussion: things that are hard to do on a boat on a rough ocean, things to wear when it's cold, and the different kinds of penguins inhabiting the icy expanse.

Author and Illustrator Patricia Polacco has a knack for creating picture books for older readers. Her thoughtful, sensitive stories have addressed a range of issues including cancer, cultural differences, race relations and slavery. Her most recent book, Bully, takes on a topic she has written about previously in both Thank You, Mr. Falkerand Mr. Lincoln's Way, but this story depicts how bullying can take place via social media, as well as through direct interactions with peers.

Bully describes how Lyla attempts to make friends and fit in at her new school. A new friend encourages her to get a cell phone, a laptop computer, and a Facebook account so that she can "stay connected with the world!" Her parents relent, and her new friend Jamie, who is a computer wiz, helps her set everything up. The cool "celebrity" girls invite Lyla to join their clique -- not for her newfound electronic communication skills, but for her tumbling and cheerleading abilities. Read more »

The versatile Mo Willems, author and illustrator of popular picture books about the much loved Knuffle Bunny, the demanding Pigeon, and Early Readers featuring good friends Elephant and Piggie, has unleashed his creative humor into the realm of classic folk tales. Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs as retold by Willems, follows the basic plot of the familiar story featuring the three bears and an adventurous blond haired girl. But instead of porridge, the dinosaurs are preparing bowls of delicious chocolate pudding at varying temperatures. They seem to be setting a trap for an "unsuspecting kid" as they loudly announce their departure for "someplace else" -- not necessarily a walk in the woods. Read more »

It seems like a basic concept, a "no-brainer" if you will: the more you read, the better you get at it. But it was good to be reminded of this proven fact at the Literacy Summit sponsored by the Monroe County Community School Corporation last week. Dr. Richard Allington, Professor of Education at the University of Tennessee was one of the featured speakers. He underscored research demonstrating that the number of minutes spent reading outside of school directly correlates to how well you read. Like anything else, reading takes practice to get good at it. A former elementary school classroom teacher before beginning his career as a teacher educator and instructional researcher, Allington also emphasized the importance of allowing children to choose for themselves what to read. "Students must have choice along with interesting texts -- things they want to read," he said. Read more »

Hello, Bloomington Brainiacs - Please use the link above to sign up for a special program which doesn't appear in the Children's Services summer program brochure: Famous Brainiac Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor will join us in the library auditorium on Saturday, July 21, at 11 a.m. to read the classic children's book Miss Rumphius, and to chat and answer questions! (And did you know we have Dr. Jill's very cool and colorful brain statue - one of 22 brain statues around town - in front of the library, near the bear statues?) Ages 5 and up are welcome (though 5 and 6-year olds will need to be accompanied by an adult, of course); teens and adults are welcome, too, even if unaccompanied by children!

In our Move to the Groove program last month, we took a look at how you can find dance music at the library. I had pulled a sampling of CDs from our collection to share with the kids, but also demonstrated how anyone with a library card - and a computer -- can download music for free through Freegal! Read more »